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My new method: A very easy Wholewheat bread!

My new method: A very easy Wholewheat bread!

A very easy to make whole wheat bread:

This is a method I came up with, that marries two good techniques: Delayed fermentation, and the no knead technique.

The method goes like this: Add tiny yeast (or active starter) to flour and water, give them a mix to barely incorporate them and put the dough in the fridge for upto 48 hours. Remove from the fridge when you want to bake, cut the dough into quarters and sprinkle salt on top, and mix briefly to form a dough and leave to rest on a floured work surface. An hour later, Shape the dough into a log/batard/boule, and insert it into a pan/brotform. An hour to an hour and a half later bake the dough in a preheated oven for 35 minutes. (Even without any enrichments, this dough takes color fast, due to the saltless retardation).

I have baked a 50% whole wheat bread using this method, and it was extremely tasty and easy to make.

Well, it came out of necessity, Floyd. I wanted wholewheat bread on short notice but didn't want to sacrifice flavor, so i put what i learned here and from the books ( that i learned about here) to practice.

technique Khalid, The bread came out perfectly so it has to taste good too. Does salt usually make bread brown less or slower?

If using a SD levain, since there is only 2.5 hours of counter proofing and 1.5 hours of that coming out of the fridge cold, what would you suggest for the levain amount ....200 g? and how much longer would you recommend for the two counter proof - 3 to 4 hours each?

Please do try different variations, though i suggest you make necessary adjustments. For instance, enrichments or soakers weigh down the crumb, so you may want to mix well after the loaf is taken out of the refrigerator. Also, the bread browns fast enough as it is, so any honey would just darken the crust too fast.

My inclination would be to include a soaker in the initial mix and mix a few minutes longer to get some gluten development. I wouldn't want to make the procedure less easy, which would defeat your purpose: simplicity. If honey were added, a reduction in oven temperature might be needed, as Hamelman suggests for his Whole Wheat Multigrain bread, which has 3% honey.

BTW, you didn't indicate your baking temperature.

In fact, I might just try Hamelman's formula but do a bulk retardation. I need to think about when to add the salt. Holding it back as you did allows for faster fermentation prior to dough cooling. If it were added before retarding the dough, a longer time for fermentation the next day might compensate.

Hi Khalid, this looks great and I can see from the fine blistering on the crust that this is a very tasty loaf. Am definitely going to have to give this a try. I like the fact that it requires so little time. I haven't had much trime for bread baking lately!

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